Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: TO THE GIRL WHO WOULD CULTIVATE HERSELF For a clever boy, no matter how poor, to rise as a man to his own level is so common, especially in America, as to excite no comment. His level may be that of the uncultivated rich, the self-made man of business, or that of the literary scholar: whatever it is, if he has energy, courage, and a fair chance, he reaches it. All this may be true of a girl; but a girl seldom gets wha t a boy would call, in hi s own case, a fair chance. In most of the learned professions she is still eyed with disfavor; in the effort to go to college she has many more sympathizers than of old, but few who feel that a college training is for her a necessity; in business, beyond stenography, typewriting, and such other subjects as are taught at commercial schools and paid for by small or moderate salaries, she can rarely compete with men. There is no getting round the fact that a girl is a girl, and that as such—whatever her courage and her cleverness — she is hampered in the rough struggle for advancement, distinction, and wealth. A few women of exceptional attainments and privileges earn large salaries; but compared with those who marry people that earn large salaries their number is insignificant. Through marriage or inheritance most women win such material wealth as they possess, and with it such opportunities for culture and intellectual pleasure as well-spentwealth affords. Yet in our country an unmarried girl, with only her own efforts to support her, may lift her life above its drudgery and may become in greater or less degree a cultivated woman. I assume that she has fair health, though many girls not physically strong do what I have in mind. The principal requisites are common sense and courage. Common sense, like humor, is a saving quality, showing ...